How to Maintain Work Life Balance in Digital Marketing

More and more people are struggling to maintain a healthy work life balance. The digital marketing sector is no different. What should be a core principle of a healthy lifestyle is being overlooked in place for longer working hours, which is likely to prove damaging to their mental wellbeing. This often displaying as increased stress levels and other mental health problems. Although in most of Europe the working week is limited to 48 hours, the UK opted out of the European Working Time Directive which has allowed employees to work a week in excess of 48 hours by written consent. Here are a few tips to help you develop and maintain a work life balance.

‘Work Smart, Not long’

You may have heard of this before, this simply involves allowing yourself a set amount of time per task and avoiding unstructured time consuming activities. By maintaining a tight hold on what you spend your time on, it can help in planning activities and reducing stress.

Separate Work From Leisure

It has become increasingly easier to take your work home with you thanks to the internet however, this can become a habit that is hard to kick, try to draw a line between your work and home. If work must be taken home having a certain working area in the house can help with keeping work and leisure separate.

Make Weekend Plans

It is easy to let your weekend pass without doing anything for yourself however, making plans to spend time with friends/ family or reading a book you love, can help reduce your stress while at the same time give you something to look forward to during the week. Every little bit of time spent doing a leisure activity adds up and will eventually lead to a good balance between work and leisure.

Take Your Lunch Break

Many of us will choose to work through lunch or eat a quick sandwich at the desk however if you have half an hour for your lunch take it! Getting away from work for even a quick walk can help clear your head and reduce stress levels.

Keep Track of Your Hours

Working late, going in early or volunteering to work that extra day can help you get your work done and even bring in a little extra money however in excess this can ruin your work life balance while at the same time drastically increase your stress levels without you realising. If you are going to work extra try to keep it as a one off and not let it become the norm.

With the help of the above tips you should be able to develop and maintain your own personal work life balance, remember that everybody is different and you should aim to make a plan that works for you. Sweden has done extensive research and trials in regards to helping the public improve their way of life with the most used and widely tested being the 6 hour work day. This has shown resurgence recently with tech and digital marketing start-ups. On the contrary, Australia has been seen falling behind the rest of the western world with the average working hours increasing to 44 hours per week, often being unpaid and leading to a large increase in stress levels. If you are looking for a role that offers greater flexibilty, check out our job search pages.